


family is a four-letter word

by TigerMoon



Series: family is a four-letter word [4]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Families of Choice, Family Feels, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Heart-to-Heart, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, The Mindscape, because I needed ghost dad and farming bab bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-02
Updated: 2017-03-02
Packaged: 2018-09-27 20:02:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10044221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TigerMoon/pseuds/TigerMoon
Summary: Oscar can barely remember his parents, save for old and faded photographs. (Ozpin wishes he could forget.)What starts as a discussion over photographs becomes an understanding of what it is, truly, to be a family.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is meant to be a sequel to _three small words_ ; I highly recommend reading that fic first before reading this one.

Of all the items Oscar owns (and he owns precious few, especially now), the ratty old photo album at the bottom of his rucksack is the most precious. There are few photos left of his parents. Most his aunt kept in her own albums, great big books tucked away to be shared at family events; Oscar’s book was kept close, to be thumbed through on nights when he felt the loss of family a little too well.

 

(He’d stolen a few extra photos before setting off to Mistral, to replace the ones he had worn thin – images of his parents laughing at the lake, of his birth, of the last vacation they’d had together. They were the only things that let him remember how brightly his father could smile, how gentle his mother looked in the light.)

 

It’s as he’s leafing through the pages that he feels the stirring in the back of his mind, a hint of cautious curiosity. “It’s okay to look,” Oscar says to the empty room, settling back in the armchair he’s curled up in. There’s a bit of a start in his head, the invitation almost too kind, and he quickly covers it with a bit of snark. It won’t do to let the other soul think he has free reign to look at just anything through his eyes, after all. “You’ve probably seen them a million times before in my head anyway, haven’t you?”

 

Ozpin makes a non-committal noise. It’s a bit unusual for the man to be so standoffish, but Oscar’s noticed that the headmaster tends to avoid interacting with him when it comes to past memories, especially about his family. _This is one of the areas I’ve thought it best to at least try and give you privacy_ , he answers. _Family can be...well. It can be a sensitive subject._ He pauses as the boy runs his fingers alongside a glossy image. _Though you seem rather content, right now._

 

“Well, yeah.” Oscar smiles lopsidedly. The photo he’s looking at is one of the replacements, a dark-haired man pushing a child on a tire swing. The original is tucked away in the back of the album to prevent further damage. “I mean, I miss them a lot. But I have some good memories. Like here.” He taps his gloved fingers against the image, careful not to smudge the blurry faces like he’s done before. “This one Ma took while we were staying with my auntie one summer. Pa made the swing himself for me. At least… that’s what Auntie said.”

 

_You don’t remember it, do you_ , the voice inside his mind murmurs sadly, and the boy’s halting smile falters.

 

“I was six when they died.” Oscar presses his lips together in a frown and flips the page. “I used to remember them. Really well. It just gets… harder.”

 

(He doesn’t even know why he’s telling the meddling old man in his head all this, except that Ozpin is there, safe, listening and warm with quiet sympathy.)

 

The image staring up at him now is of the three of them, father and mother and son all smiling, and he stares at it longingly. “I was happy,” he says in a tight voice. “I remember that much. I remember being happy. And that’s all I can remember, some days.” There’s a tightness in his chest, and unlike the nights he wakes up from nightmares he can never fully remember, this pain is a sorrow of an entirely different kind. It’s bittersweet. Nostalgic. As if an old wound has been slowly pulled back open, down the center of his heart.

 

_Oscar_ , comes the quiet voice, a spectral hand on his shoulder.

 

“I can’t remember Ma’s voice anymore,” Oscar manages, his voice quavering.

 

There’s a pause before the feeling of weight on his shoulders surrounds him, like arms around him, but there is no one there but the ghost inside his head. (Somehow that’s okay, the idea of Ozpin hugging him – it reminds him of how his father used to throw an arm around his shoulders and hold him tight. It’s _safe_ , and safety is something he’s come to cherish on this long, strange journey.)

 

“… do you remember your parents?” Oscar asks.

 

For a second the pain in his chest splits double, a knife between his ribs, and then it is gone. Oscar closes his eyes and suddenly it is if they are sitting on the floor against opposite sides of a small room, mirror images in the mindspace. Ozpin isn’t withdrawing, not entirely, though the bulk of him is hidden as he draws his knees to his chest. Only his eyes are truly visible, deep amber all aglow. His shadow is a pool of ink about him, a hungry void that writhes like a half-forgotten memory.

 

_Y_ _es,_ he finally says, and there is a hint of something like bitterness in his quiet voice, a tone that is meant to be a warning.

 

It’s a warning Oscar doesn’t care to heed.

 

(If he has learned anything about the wizard, it is this – he will bear the pains of others until he is ready to break, but he will never, ever ask for help with his own pain, not even when he is about to suffocate. Qrow is better suited for this, knows Ozpin disturbingly well, but Qrow is not the one who has to bear this now. Oscar is Ozpin’s heir, the one who must share his soul, and if the elder spirit is always willing to be there to guide the boy then by the gods Oscar can at least try to help.)

 

He gets up and takes the few steps to sit back down beside Ozpin on the floor of their mind. Perhaps it isn’t healthy to imagine the other as being so warm and solid within his head, but it helps – it helps both of them, Oscar’s sure of it. He puts a hand on Ozpin’s arm. “Did you love them?” he asks.

 

The wizard’s eyes close tight as he bows his head. The shadows around him flicker, splashes of ink coalescing into a dark figure cut through with empty eyes and a jagged smile that chills to the bone. Oscar’s seen that figure before, in Ozpin’s nightmares, the cruel hands that flex and reach and the child with amber eyes who can never escape.

 

He knows, now, who those figures are. He knows who the child is, who the shadow was, what happened behind the darkness. He knows but to have the confirmation of what he suspected, of what Qrow had hinted at, laid out here is more than he thinks he can bear.

 

Ozpin opens his eyes – and oh, the oceans of shame behind them, the unshed tears that make them shimmer – to stare up at the inky figure, frozen above them. _I wish I could say I didn’t_ , he says, his voice so quiet it’s barely even a whisper. He reaches out a trembling hand, so very tiny compared to the outstretched claw of his nightmares. Of his memories.

 

Oscar holds tight to Ozpin as he touches the shadow of memory. _It…_ _it_ _would make things so much easier if I_ could _hate_ _them_ , he says finally, and when the ink and the shadows fall apart around him Oscar throws his arms around the other’s thin shoulders and hugs him tight.

 

After several moments Oscar feels Ozpin’s arms come up around him, tentative at first, before clutching him almost painfully tight. “I’m sorry,” Oscar chokes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t – your family-”

 

_They were my parents, but t_ _hey weren’t my family, Oscar,_ comes the reassurance, his voice as soft and gentle as rain. _Family doesn’t… family doesn’t hurt you._ _Family doesn’t use you, or make you ashamed and afraid._ _Family are the ones who love you. Protect you._ There are faces running through Ozpin’s mind now, faces Oscar has seen in idle memory – a severe woman with blonde curls, a man with greying temples and a robotic hand; a pair of men, one tall and thin with shocking green hair and the other short and stout and grey; hundreds of young faces, pride in each and every one of them.

 

(Hazel green eyes and freckles and wild black hair flashes through the wizard’s mind, and Oscar forgets to breathe because it’s _him_ – he has resented this old man, hated him for this invasion, the things neither of them can control, and still he is there in Ozpin’s mind, _family_.)

 

Above them all there is spiky black hair shot through with grey, crimson eyes and a cocky smile, a chin brushed with stubble and a red cape fluttering in the wind – more than family, home and heart and everything that makes life worth living. It’s a show of utter honesty Oscar isn’t certain he deserves. The people Ozpin loves are but a glimpse, but it is enough. Oh, it is enough. _The people who stand behind you, ready to catch you if you falter, who help you to stand if you can’t get to your feet. The ones who see your flaws and your broken pieces and accept you regardless._ _Family is not hurt, or fear, or shame. Family is love._

 

Ozpin sighs and smiles down at Oscar, warm and honest even through the pain; a smile so real it almost hurts breaks out broad across Oscar’s face in reply. _F_ _amily is something you can_ choose _, Oscar._ _And that makes it more precious than anything to me._

 

Oscar sniffles, undignified, and presses his face in the crook of Ozpin’s neck. “Yeah,” he says, holding onto him tight. “Me too.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment and let me know what you thought, even if you hated it!


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